Wednesday 26 March 2014 05.00 EDT
First published on Wednesday 26 March 2014 05.00 EDT

The winner

When it debuted in third place with £1.53m from 284 cinemas, Grand Budapest Hotel always looked on course to become Wes Anderson's biggest live-action film at UK cinemas, displacing The Royal Tenenbaums (£3.33m lifetime). A week later, with an expansion to 372 venues, the film found itself in second place in the UK box office chart. And now, in its third week of release, the Middle European caper grabs the top spot, dethroning video-game adaptation Need for Speed. With third-weekend takings of £1.27m from 458 sites, Grand Budapest Hotel has earned £6.31m in just 17 days. The film has a real shot at overtaking Anderson's animated family flick Fantastic Mr Fox (£9.19m) to become his biggest-ever UK hit.

It's not unprecedented for a film to rise slowly to the top of the box office chart, but more typically this occurs after a title expands nationwide from a tiny London West End platform, as occurred recently with American Hustle. We also sometimes see a film return to the top spot having been temporarily replaced by another title: that was the case with Wreck-It Ralph just over a year ago. In 2012, animations Rise of the Guardians and ParaNorman, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel all climbed to the chart summit on their second week of play.

We have to go back to 2011 to find a full nationwide release climbing to No1 at a pace equivalent to, or slower pace than, Grand Budapest Hotel, and that was Arthur Christmas, which took four weeks to get there.

Grand Budapest Hotel's £6.31m includes takings from its current Secret Cinema run, but it's not known how much of the £53.50 ticket price is being included as film revenues. Not counting Secret Cinema, the film's top site is London's Brixton Ritzy, which has delivered a stunning £101,000 so far.

The mid-table new-arrival scrap

All the previous weekend's top five films retain that status, albeit with some shuffling of position. That means that the highest new entrant lands in sixth place: Starred Up, with £495,000 from 316 cinemas including previews of £17,400, delivering an OK £1,567 average. Distributor Fox reports that top sites were regional multiplexes such as Cineworld Sheffield, Glasgow and Dublin, suggesting that the film is connecting with a broad youthful audience and Jack O'Connell fans more than it is the indie cinemagoers that might have embraced past David Mackenzie titles such as Young Adam and Hallam Foe.

A comparative title for Starred Up is Nicolas Winding Refn's Bronson, which debuted with £258,000 from 85 cinemas back in March 2009, expanding to 109 sites a week later. Fox opted for a broader rollout for Starred Up, perhaps conscious that the Captain America sequel arrives in its second week of play. And the weekend of opening really did look like the best chance for Starred Up to grab an audience, given the notably weak competition arriving alongside it.

A Long Way Down superficially appeared to have some solid marketable elements, notably the Nick Hornby source novel and a mid-level cast boasting Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots and Aaron Paul. But a critical mauling (27/100 at MetaCritic), including a one-star excoriation from the Guardian's own Peter Bradshaw ("fantastically unconvincing"), didn't help, and a suicide-themed comedy was probably always going to be a tricky sell. A debut of £362,000 from 363 cinemas delivered an average just below £1,000.

Initially positioned as an awards-season title, having premiered last August at the Telluride film festival, Labor Day saw its release date pushed into calmer March seas after it became evident that it wasn't going to earn any Oscar or Bafta nominations. With an opening salvo of £279,000 from 319 cinemas and an £874 average, the weak number is no great surprise, but presumably lower than Paramount was hoping when it acquired the title. Having hit the jackpot with both Juno (£9.84m lifetime) and Up in the Air (£6.52m), director Jason Reitman has subsequently proved less commercially sure-footed. In 2012, Young Adult debuted with a disappointing £137,000 from 157 sites, eventually reaching £434,000. Labor Day will be lucky to crack seven figures here, although salvation could come from the older audience on weekdays.

The disappointment

When Ride Along debuted in the UK four weeks ago with £1.42m, the success seemed to suggest that a) Kevin Hart is now a marketable star in the UK, and b) the huge gap that has existed between the US and UK box-office for films featuring primarily black American casts was finally narrowing. But the opening number for About Last Night – landing in 12th place with £173,000 from 209 cinemas – suggests it's more complicated than that. While broad audiences evidently liked the sound of Hart teaming with Ice Cube in an action comedy, the remake of the 1986 Rob Lowe/Demi Moore relationship dramedy (in turn based on the David Mamet play Sexual Perversity in Chicago) had less certain appeal. On top of that, it's a four-hander, with Hart this time joined by Michael Ealy, Joy Bryant and Regina Hall. In the US, Variety reported that 58% of the Ride Along audience was African American on opening weekend, as against 72% for About Last Night. How strongly would the latter film appeal to non-black audiences outside the US? Another test arrives this September with Think Like a Man Too, which reteams Hart, Ealy and Hall in a large ensemble that straddles ethnicities. The original Think Like a Man grossed $92m in the US, but took less that $5m in foreign territories. Can Hart's rising international profile shake up those numbers?

The arthouse hit

Partly thanks to an expansion from 47 to 75 venues, Under the Skin dropped a very slim 5% from the previous weekend, and has now turned a nifty £596,000. Despite mostly ecstatic reviews, it was never certain how audiences would respond to the film, but a screen average of £2,624 for a second weekend of play is pretty robust. Jonathan Glazer's last film Birth benefited from a wider release, initially at 270 cinemas, and reached £1.18m here. Distributor StudioCanal will now be hoping to match it with Under the Skin.

The future

With Grand Budapest Hotel occupying the summit with the lowest weekend takings for a No 1 film since Prisoners topped the chart last October, and a weak field of new releases, it's no surprise to see box office takings 40% below the equivalent session from 2013, when The Croods arrived with a £5.4m bang. Takings are also an alarming 48% down on the average of the last 52 weekends. Luckily for cinema owners, salvation is imminent, with two of Disney's prime franchise assets arriving Friday – Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Muppets Most Wanted. The Muppets flick in fact played paid previews this past weekend, and the box-office will be added into its opening tally. Also in the mix: Legend of Hercules, starring Kellan Lutz, and Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom.